Between Demolition and Construction: Performing Drifting Identities in Jia Zhangke’s Films

Contemporary Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke demonstrates how auteurism performs an essential role in shaping an impressive grassroots poetics within a rapidly vanishing space. Hailed by some critics as “the cinematic poet” of postsocialist China, Jia has developed an expansive field of citation where the recurrent spaces of demolition and construction are notable tropes. Bound up with the transformations of local […]

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Realisms within Conundrum: The Personal and Authentic Appeal in Jia Zhangke’s Accented Films

Abstract: With persistent efforts on constructing personal and collective memories arising from the unprecedented transformations in post-socialist China, Jia Zhangke has produced an ensemble of realist films with an impressive personal and authentic appeal. This paper examines how his films are characterised by a variety of accents, images of authenticity, a quotidian ambience, and a new sense of materiality within […]

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